Families to save up to €450 a year as VHI unveils cuts

IRISH families can save up to €450 a year on their health insurance, after the country’s largest insurer announced price cuts across its plans yesterday.

All VHI’s plans will drop by an average of 5.5% – while its popular family Day to Day plan for two adults and two children will drop by 10% from just over €4,450 to slightly more than €4,000.

The price cuts come on the back of reductions by Laya, which unveiled a 6% drop in October that will save a family of four almost €375.

Health insurance expert Dermot Goode, of Totalhealth cover.ie, said: ‘This is a big development because it’s the first time we’ve seen decreases like this of such a high rate of reduction.

‘We haven’t seen that before across so many plans.

‘Also, it’s not one of these offers for a few months; it looks like these are permanent decreases so this is going to benefit a lot of people.

‘It’s going to be €150-€200 of a reduction per family, maybe more. It was unexpected and for every action like that there’s going to be a reaction from the others. This is good news. We’ve spoken of a price war before, but now we’re seeing the real signs of it.’

VHI is the country’s largest health insurer with about one million members. The cuts are expected to attract new customers, which helps reduce premiums further.

‘It means you’ve got a greater number of members to spread the risk, so there’s no downside to this,’ said Mr Goode.

The other companies are expected to look at the cuts and consider their next move.

VHI director Declan Moran said: ‘As a not-for-profit organisation that exists solely to meet the healthcare needs of our customers, we are pleased to be in a position to give back to our customers today, through price reductions of 5.5% across many plans, impacting almost 90% of our customers. This is due to a solid business performance over the last number of years supported by another strong financial performance in 2017.’

Dermot Goode also called on Health Minister Simon Harris to look at cutting the levies loaded onto each premium – €444 for most adults and €148 for most children.

The levies are designed to equalise costs across the industry.

‘Keep schemes under review’

A spokesman for rival insurer Laya Healthcare said: ‘We understand that cost and affordability are front of mind for consumers,

‘At Laya Healthcare we constantly keep our schemes under review to ensure that we can continue to offer our 580,000 members great value and the most comprehensive cover in the health insurance market.’

Irish Life Health did not respond to calls. christian.mccashin@dailymail.ie